Heated steering wheel not heating up?

[flapajack]

Got my MG4 Trophy back from is first service yesterday. Now have the latest R63 software on the infotainment, which is nice (was on R30).

Unfortunately the heated steering wheel has decided not to play ball anymore. TBF I had the problem before the service when the infotainment screen decided to go on a dead-loop flicker between the Home and the Widget screens and would not allow me to select any function, including switching on AC, heated seats, 360 camera etc. However, with some help from this forum I managed to sort this by getting out of the bad DAB station 'dead-loop'. Since then I cannot get the heated steering wheel to work (no heat even though it shows power is on). I thought perhaps the expected software updates from the upcoming service would solve it. It didn't.

When I inform the garage about potential issues for attention during the service I mentioned that the heated steering wheel was not working. I was contacted by the garage informing that this has been fixed following the software update and it "does get hot after a minute or 2" which I thought was ridiculous - how do you control the heating if it only responds "after a minute or 2"? Indeed now that I have the car back and have taken several drives in it it is clear that even though the screen is showing the heated steering wheel being on there is virtually no heat. I said 'virtually' as at best it may get slightly warm, if at all. This is despite having driven it for 30mins or more.

Before the screen flicker issue the heated steering wheel got warm (even hot at times) literally 5secs after switching on. I could imagine this may be too much for some people and the software update could have dialled it down a bit but surely it must still respond within a reasonable time scale - not several minutes.

Does anyone else have our come across this issue? I definitely need to get this back to the garage but it would be good to know whether this is the "new normal" with the latest software update.

TIA

 

[mg4mc]

Pretty sure the heat level is only controlled by switching the power off/on. I can hear a relay clicking on mine.

 

[Coulomb]

I can hear a relay clicking on mine.

Perhaps when the screen was flickering, the heated steering wheel relay was flickering on and off too, and this might have worn out the contacts prematurely. Switching high current DC, even at 12 V, is hard on contacts.

This relay may reside in a fuse box, and it might even be user replaceable.

 

[mg4mc]

CR2 in passenger compartment fuse box.

 

[Kithmo]

Mine has never really got hot, just warm at best. It's been like that from new.

 

[salty]

Mine's lovely and Toasty.

 

[flapajack]

Mine had been quite toasty from new although this ceased since the screen flicker issue arise. Have booked the car back in for later this month to get this checked out.

Will give an update over I get a better idea of what's causing this.

 

[flapajack]

Ok, so got the car serviced and checked out a couple of weeks back.

Car was collected and delivered back. Software (infotainment) has been updated and it is now generation-improved upon what I had previously when I first got the car (now R63 whereas previously R30). However, the heated steering wheel was still not working. Had the delivery driver here trying to get it to work for over 20mins but no luck. Booked the car back in for another checkup a couple of weeks later.

Took the car back in earlier this week and the dealer, after over 1.5hr of checking, advise that there's 2 possible causes: 1) a module under the passenger seat which will require some work to replace; or 2) the steering wheel itself needed replacing. Both items have now been ordered and the car is booked in for (up to) a week in early March for the required work. At least the dealer is no longer disputing the fault, which they initially did after the car was serviced claiming that it is "normal" for the heated steering wheel to get hot about 5 minutes after switching on - which I called BS on.

Perhaps it was the continuously flickering between the 2 screens later last year that caused the failure. Hopefully with the replacement parts this will resolve the issue for good . Will give an update once this has been done.

Cheers